Generally, interconnect circuitry on a communication network is built according to a standard networking protocol. The networking protocol may include various protocol layers. The protocol layers may be stacked hierarchically. One of the more common standard networking protocols is based on the Open System Interconnections (OSI) model.
Among the standard networking protocols, there may be protocols to transmit or receive data. Such protocols are usually implemented on an integrated circuit. Typical protocols for transmitting or receiving include, among others, the Interlaken, Ethernet, and Scalalable Serdes Framer Interface (SFI-S) protocols. The signal transmission and reception protocols may be implemented using serializer/deserializer (SERDES) circuitry, which is available on the integrated circuit.
In practice, the SERDES circuitry may encounter a wide range of errors. The errors may be detected using various test equipments. However, existing test equipments may output an unmanageable amount of data to the user. Providing massive amounts of data is counterproductive and does not facilitate the process of pinpointing an error within the network system. Furthermore, the massive amount of data may be difficult and time-consuming to analyze.
It is within this context that the embodiments described herein arise.